I've been dipping in and out of grief lately: unexplained, for no (apparent) reason, deep. It's a pressure behind my eyes, a heaviness in my tearducts, a compression in my lungs. I'd like to cry, but at most I can well up. Rarely does a tear slip out onto my face.It's complicated, since much of it isn't mine, or directly related to me. It's not the black dog, either: that's a separate state. A heaviness: so much death and suffering around me. Not a battlefield, but a hospital. And there's nothing, nothing I can do to help directly: except, perhaps, suffer alongside. Take some of the heaviness: lift it up. I can carry a lot. I do think it's part of my job, my assignment, in this lifetime: to carry some of this for other people (not everyone, not all the time, or I would be a pancake rather than a person). I'm not in this feeling all my day: I'm a fairly merry person at work. But the wave comes up; and really my best option is to feel it, and let it go. Release it, when I can. Know that this is helpful, to someone somewhere, so I'm useful. More tomorrow, from a different perspective: what is this? and what do we do with it?